Monday, August 31, 2009

these list of quick commands allows you to open certain types of window, such as folder option, add hardware wizard, check disk utility and more.. in order to use this commands type it on run window (start>run) and press enter.

Fast user switching is a very useful feature of Windows for multi-user computers. fast user switching allows multiple users to be logged into a computer at once. This is very useful when someone is in the middle of work but another needs to use the computer shortly.Fast user switching will allow the other user to log in while still retaining the other users session. Once the other user is finished the session can be switched back to the original user. now lets see how to create shortcut for fast user switching.

Right click the area the shortcut you want to appear then click new shortcut

Now copy c:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe to location area (typing area next to browse button)

Cleanup "prefetch files" - some say it will create problems, some say it is safe to delete, some say it doesn't make any difference. my thought is you can safely delete prefetch files with no problems at all. below descriptions is about how to delete unnecessary files from system.

If you need all in one type software to perform all above actions, the only free software i know (the best) is Ccleaner. just download software, install it, after install select the actions to perform (it automatically selected most for you) then click analyse, if this gonna take time click cancel button and click run cleaner, this perform all above actions for you.

We all know windows xp uses some considerable amount or ram for visual elements, this can cause your computer to be less responsive. By tweaking your graphics settings, you can increase the performance of your computer. to get start reduce some color quality, procedure as follows.

Right click on your desktop and click properties

Click on the settings tab and adjust the color quality to medium (16 bit) form the drop down menu

Click apply and ok to exit

Next, we use the windows performance settings to optimize your computer for performance. this will reduce lot of the fancy graphics effects. follow these steps.

Right click on my computer and click properties

Click advanced tab

Now under "performance" click settings

In the visual effects tab select "adjust for best performance"

Click apply and ok

One more thing, we also can use "windows classic" as a default theme, to do this follow these steps.

Right click on the empty area of desktop and click properties to open "display properties" window.

On the theme tab, select windows classic from the drop down menu

Click apply and ok to exit display properties.

After completing all above steps, you can see some faster response from the computer

Thursday, August 27, 2009

first you need to install Yahoo Messenger, yahoo messenger can download at http://messenger.yahoo.com , then you will need to install the Browser Services option to make this work properly. Without the browser services installed, you cannot set Yahoo Mail as your default. follow these steps to set the default email program.

One of the errors in Windows Vista happens when you try to connect to a shared network printer. Everything else on the network appears to work properly, shared files, internet access, but Most of the time you'll receive an "Access is Denied" error when trying to connect even though you can see the printer on the network and everything else is working properly.try below method as a solution

Go to the control panel and open printers

Click on Add a printer

Click on Add a Local Printer

Choose Create a New Port with type of port remaining Local Port, then click Next

In the Port Name box type the path to the printer you wish to connect to and Click Ok (Ex - \\computer\printer)

In the Install Printer Driver screen, select your printer from the list or choose Have Disk and specify the location of the printer drivers on the computer then click Next and then click Finish.

sometimes this can occur when you try to install program, if you have this problem try to install program in a different user account, check hard disk for errors and verify enough disk space available for installation.There is more than one possible cause for this error, they are described as follows.

User profiles are enabled

You are installing to an invalid destination folder

The Windows registry contains invalid characters

The computer is using a real mode (16-bit) driver to access the CD-ROM drive

The Microsoft Windows Installer file is damaged or is not installed correctly

The computer has insufficient hard disk space

Your profile contains a slash (/) character in the name (for example, Jones/Smith)

The CPU does not meet the minimum system requirements to run the program

To prevent all workstations and file servers from being infected with the worm, you are recommended to do the following.

Install the patch from Microsoft that covers the vulnerability MS08-067, MS08-068, MS09-001 (on these pages you will have to select which operating system is installed on the infected PC, download corresponding patch and install it)

Make sure the password of the local administrator account is not obvious and cannot be hacked easily – the password should contain 6 letters minimum; use a mixture of uppercase and lowercase, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters such as punctuation marks

Disable autorun of executable files from removable drives

Block access to TCP ports number 445 and 139 using a network screen (You need to block these ports only while you perform the disinfection. As soon as you have the entire red disinfected, feel free to unblock the ports)

kido is a worm, A worm is a type of virus that replicates by resending itself as an e-mail attachment or as part of a network message. Unlike a regular computer virus, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to duplicate itself. A worm hides in active memory and performs malicious acts, such as using parts of the computer’s system resources. Worms are usually invisible to the user and are designed to affect the computer’s performance. A worm take control of remote systems without any help from the users and can delete files, send documents via email, or encrypt files.

It can tracks which websites you visited or what terms you’ve typed. Spyware uses your information to deliver targeted ads to you. Also, data of your surfing activities may be sold to third parties.

Slow computer performance. A sluggish computer is one of the easiest signs that you have been infected with Kido. Kido and other unwanted sofware use your computer’s resources to do its nasty tasks such as displaying popups or tracking your surfing activities. If you see your computer is slowing down dramatically or crashing a lot, you may be infected with an unwanted software.

Sings of network infection

Network traffic volume increases if there are infected PCs in the network, because network attack starts from these PCs.

Anti-Virus product with enabled Intrusion Detection System informs of the attack Intrusion.Win.NETAPI.buffer-overflow.exploit

It tries to connect to the sites of http://www.getmyip.org, http://getmyip.co.uk, http://www.whatsmyipaddress.com, http://www.whatismyip.org, http://checkip.dyndns.org, in order to learn the external IP address of the infected computer (recommended action is configuring a rule to monitor connection attempts to these sites it network firewall)

Note - if you cant access website due to kido infection, there is a small thing to try to access webistes, follow these steps

Sunday, August 23, 2009

This article talks about how to create a scheduled shutdown for your pc, to do that we need a special software (freeware) called "poweroff", actually you can do even more things like schedule a shutdown/reboot/logoff/poweroff/Standby/Hibernate/Lock/Wake-On-LAN at a certain time with this handy software.this small program is support for Win95/98/NT/W2K/XP.to create schedule shutdown follow these steps.

have you received "disk read error" after you remove windows vista and try to install windows xp. did you think your hard disk might faulty, don't worry you don't have to replace your hard disk, this is a most common error after removal of vista and try to install xp. the problem occurs after initial files are copied to hard disk and restart pc.

to solve this problem you have to re-partition your hard disk, first you need to take a backup of your data to another pc or hard disk, then while installing xp you can delete all partitions and re-partition hard disk again, or you can just delete C: partion and create partion again, no more disk read errors, enjoy installing windows.

kaspersky antivirus 2010 users, i have good news for you, you know that there is a feature called "microsoft windows settings troubleshooting" this feature can automatically scan your system and prompts if there is problems caused by a viruses or malware.

for example - if your systems registry or folder options disabled by a virus, its dispaly in a windows called "system restore wizard" (after the scan complete), then you can select the problem by clicking check box and proceed with repair, then kaspersky antivirus will automatically do the repairs for you, this is great feature avialable in latest kaspersky version of 2010 (ver 9.0)

here is a step by step guide how to repair system with kaspersky antivirus.

first open kaspersky antivirus (double click from task bar in bottom right corner)

in the left pane click security+ button

now click microsoft windows settings troubleshooting

then select search for problems related to malware activity

after completion of scan results are displayed in a window called system restore wizard

Friday, August 21, 2009

are you using foxconn motherboard? then this news is for you, when you install motherboard drivers first you must install chipset drivers, after installation complete then you must restart computer (dont just click restart later and continue with other driver installation)

i,m gonna tell you if you dont restart your pc and continue with other installation, your sound driver wont work, after that there is no way to resolve the issue, the only solution is reinstallation of windows, so dont get lazy, follow the correct order and save your valuble time.

in the shared printer environment you can use the printer within the network (workgroup) between the same operating systems, however install shared printer between different operating systems cause problems.

for example - printer is installed to windows xp and shared, then you want to install the printer to windows vista pc, while installation it can be stop for driver incompatibility, this can be fixed in a small way.

first download the printer driver compatible to vista

then install printer in add printer wizard, and specify drivers in have disk option

complete the installation

now go to the network shared printer

right click on printer and click connect

this will install printer to the system, and drivers that compatible to vista is automatically identified.

in this way you can use network shared printer between different operating systems.

OK this is how it happens, pc with windows vista ultimate installed and running office 2003, used outlook 2003 as a default mail client.the problem is when you open received email and try to print, it prints the message without the valuable information (such as from, to, cc, subject) this problem not happened for all emails, only some mails. the following attempts tried and able to solve the problem, but it creates another problem.

upgrade office 2003 to office 2007, yes.. solve the problem, printout came with the header information, but another problems has occured

this time when you try to print you cant select the print range, because there is no option for print range. imagine you you have a email containing 15 pages, and you only want to print first 5 pages what should you do, when there is no option for print range? you don't trust me, then read this Microsoft help and support

then we have to open the email in web browser (double click the selected email, click other actions, click view in browser)

yes.. now you can select print range, but after print, again printout came without the header information

then we configure windows mail and import all emails to it, then try to print, there is print range available in windows mail, but sadly printout came with no header information

these whole methods came up with dead end,then we install windows xp and install office 2003, then configure outlook 2003, all problems were gone, there is print range available and printout came with header informations.that's why we love windows xp

for those using internet explorer as their default web browser, they too can protect from harmful content, to do this you must enable content adviser feature in internet explorer. this process described as follows.

First right click on internet explorer and click properties to open internet properties window (or click start - run type inetcpl.cpl and press enter)

Now in internet properties window, click content

Under content adviser, click enable

Under ratings, raise the security level in each category by dragging the slider to the right

Note - you can put password for opening content adviser , this prevents users changing the ratings level or turn off content adviser

With Mcafee site advisor installed pc you are well protected from internet browsing. With SiteAdvisor software installed, your browser will look a little different than before. It add small site rating icons to your search results as well as a browser button and optional search box. Together, these alert you to potentially risky sites and help you find safer alternatives.

These site ratings are based on tests conducted by McAfee, The result is a guide to Web safety. The SiteAdvisor technology is free, easy to install and even easier to use. And it doesn't collect any personally identifiable information.

Are you using Mozilla Firefox as your default web browser? there is good news for you, with foxfilter plugin you can quickly and easily block content for an entire site (e.g. Playboy) or enter custom keyword filters (e.g. videos, movies, images, pornography, nudity, gambling, explosives, etc.) that will be used to help block content for any site that contains these keywords.

FoxFilter comes with pre-defined filtering rules, but you can also add custom settings to block additional content as needed.FoxFilter also includes password-protected settings and security features to help prevent it from being bypassed, uninstalled or disabled. A password recovery feature is also available.

The following details described how to remove content advisor password in internet explorer using simple edit of registry, this process will reset the program to its original state. please follow these steps.

First go to the registry editor (Click on Start and Run, type regedit and click ok)

Now under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE go through the Software, Microsoft, Windows, Current Version and Policies

Now click on the Ratings

In the right pane of the registry editor, select icon called Key and delete it

Now restart the computer and run Internet Explorer again

Click on Tools, Internet Options

Click on the Content tab and click on Disable. When asked for a password, don't type anything, just click on OK

This will disable Content Advisor because there's no longer a password

With a simple edit of registry you can delete all of the temporary Internet files stored during using of internet explorer.after you exit internet explorer the temporary files were automatically deleted.the procedure described as follows.

First go to registry editor

Go to key of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache\

Now right-click in the open area to create a DWORD Value with the name "Persistent" in "Cache" key

Next, right-click on "Persistent" and click on 'Modify'

Enter the value "1" in the text box and click on 'OK'

You must change another value In order to make changes to all users accounts.

In the registry editor go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache\

Right-click on "Persistent" and click on 'Modify'

Finally, enter the value "01 00 00 00" in the text box and click on 'OK'

Can't open outlook? this can happen for a number of reasons, such as add-ins installed for outlook, corrupt PST file. in order to resolve this issue there is several methods to try.they are describes as follows.

Check task manager

Press Cntrl+Alt+Delete to open task manager and click on processes, now in processes search for a outlook.exe, check If there is multiple outlook.exe processes are running, if so end all outlook.exe processes (right click on outlook.exe and click end process) now Try to open outlook after ending all outlook.exe processes.

Open Outlook in safe mode

Click on start button and click on Run

Type outlook.exe /safe and press enter

Now outlook should be able to run, if outlook won't able to start in normal mode, we have to do a detect and repair

Detect and repair

Click on start button and click on Run

Type outlook.exe /safe and press enter

Go to Help tab in Outlook and select office diagnostics, click on continue and click on Run Diagnostics

Open Outlook without add-ins

Click on start button and click on Run

Type outlook.exe /a and press enter

If outlook can open in this way then the third party add-ins are causing the issue. This can be resolved by removing the third party add-ins.

Your Personal Address Book might contain e-mail addresses and contact information that is not included in an Outlook Address Book or contact list,the Personal Address Book creates a separate file that is stored on your hard disk drive

If you want to back up only important of your Outlook data, you can create a new backup .pst file of only the data that you want to save.for example you want use only important data of PST file, and ignore other less important, You can export only the important folders or contacts

to do this follow these steps

Open Outlook

On the File menu, click Import And Export. If the menu item is not available, hover your pointer over the chevrons at the bottom of the menu, and then click Import and Export

Click Export To File, and then click Next

Click Personal Folder File (PST) , and then click Next

Click the folder that you want to export the .pst file to, and then click Next

Click Browse, and then select the location where you want the new PST file to be saved

In the File Name box type the name that you want to use for the new PST file, and then click OK

in the next area filled the informations as necessary (sometimes it ask's for e-maill address and user location) click next to proceed

now only left thing is a download a key file, (or you can get it by e-mail)

after downloading a key, please note that the key is in compressed mode, first you need to uncompress the folder

now start your product installation, after completion first step, it ask the user to activate the productwith a different choices.

select activate using key file, now specify the key file and proceed with installation.

Note - in kasprsky 2010 (ver 9.0) you noticed that there is no option to activate the product using key file, don't panic, first you need to disconnect your pc from internet, now select ''activate using trial key '' click next (trust me on this) you came end up with error message, close error message and then you will see activate using serial key, now specify the serial key and click activate. enjoy your product...

First things first, if you see error message that is related to system restore, you need to record the error message, because most error messages that contains a description of the issue and suggestions for how to resolve the issue.

Make sure that you have enough disk space on all of the drives on which System Restore is enabled.

Make sure that System Restore is enabled on the drives

Make sure that the System Restore service is running.

you can check the system restore status using following methods.

Check in Control Panel

Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click "Performance and Maintenance"

Thursday, August 6, 2009

normally hibernation is active and you can find hibernation tab in power option (in control panel) in there you can enable and disable this feature, but the tab only appears if the hibernation facility is enabled.you can turn on or turn off this feature using following commands.

first go to the command prompt

to turn on hibernation type this command powercfg.exe /H ON and press enter

to turn off hibernation use this command powercfg.exe /H OFF and press enter

the backup utility provides five types of backup operations that define what data is backed up, such as only those files that have changed since the last backup.

some backup types use backup markers also known as archive attributes, which mark file as having changed. when file changes, an attribute is set on the file that indicates that the file has changed since the last backup. when you backup the file, this clears or resets the attributes.

Normal

during a normal backup, all selected files and folders are backed up. a normal backup does not rely on markers to determine which files to backup. during a normal backup any existing marks are cleared and each file is marked as having been backed up. normal backups spped up the restore process because the backup files are the most current and you do not need to restore multiple backup jobs.

Copy

during a copy backup, all selected files and folders are backed up. it neither looks for no clears markers. if you do not want to clear markers and effect other backup types, use a copy backup, for example use a copy backup between a normal and an incremental backup to create an archival snapshot of network data.

Incremental

during incremental backup, only selected files and folders that have a marker are backed up, and then the backup clears markers. because an incremental backup clears markers, if you did two consecutive incremental backups on a file and nothing changed in the file, the file would not be backed up the second time.

Differential

during a differential backup, only selected files and folders that have a marker are backed up, but the backup does not clear markers. because a differential backup does not clear markers, if you did two consecutive differential backups on a file and nothing changed in the file, the entire file would be backed up each time.

Daily

during a daily backup, all selected files and folders that have changed during the day are backed up. this backup neither looks for nor clears markers. if you want to backup all files and folders that change during the day, use daily backup.

System state data

system state data includes various critical operating system files, folders and databases. for all windows 2003 computers, system state data includes the operating system boot files, the registry, and the COM+ class registration database. on a windows 2003 server computer that has certificate services installed, system state data also includes the certificate serivces database.

finally on a windows 2003 server that is a domain controller, system state data also includes the active directory data store and the contents of the SYSVOL folder.

The archive attribute

the archive attribute is a marker that the operating system automatically assigns to all files and folders when they are first installed created. depending on the backup type, backup programs remove the archive attribute from a file or folder to indicate that the file or folder has been backed up. if a file or folder is modified after it is backed up, the operating system reassigns the archive attribute to it.

Using backup to perform a backup

windows 2003 ships with a backup program called backup. backup is a basic tape backup program that gives you full capability to backup and restore a windows 2003 computer, including user data on local and network drives, and system state data on the local computer.

windows xp professional provides backup or restore wizard, which allows you to easily backup data. to access the backup or restore wizard, on the start menu, point to all programs, point to accessories, point to system tools, and then click backup.alternatively on the start menu you can click run and type ntbackup and then click ok. you can use the backup or restore wizard to backup data manually or to shedule unattended backup jobs on a regular basis. you can backup data to a file or to a tape. files can be stored on hard disks, removable disks (such as Iomega Zip and Jaz drives), and recordable compact disks and optical drives.

after open backup and restore wizard page, click next. the backup or restore page allows you to specify whether you want to backup files and settings or restore files and settings.

to successfully backup and restore data on a computer running windows xp professional, you must have appropriate permissions and user rights, as described below.

all users can backup their own files and folders. they can also backup files for which they have the read, read and execute, modify, or full control permission.

all users can restore files and folders for which they have the write, modify, or full control permission.

members of the administrators and backup operators groups can backup and restore all files (regardless of the assigned permissions) by default.members of these groups have the backup files and directories and restore files and directories user rights.